DOCSLIB.ORG

Vestigial Possessive Morphology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Vestigial Possessive Morphology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian1 79 [This article was published in Working Papers in Athabaskan (Dene) Languages 2012. Alaska Native Language Center Working Papers, No. 11, eds. Sharon Hargus, Edward Vajda, Daniel Hieber. Fairbanks, AK: ANLC. 2013. Pp. 79-91. This version contains some corrections.] Vestigial possessive morphology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian1 Edward Vajda Western Washington University 1 Introduction External comparison with possessive constructions in the Yeniseian languages of Siberia suggests a diachronic explanation for morphological idiosyncrasies associated with Na-Dene possessed nouns, postpositions, directionals, and demonstrative prefixes. Section 2 discusses the nasal-class prefix that appears before certain inalienably possessed nouns in Athabaskan (Dene) languages. Section 3 intro- duces comparative Yeniseian morphology to propose that this element is a remnant of a generic posses- sive affix once regularly present between possessor and possessum in both families but surviving today in Athabaskan mostly before high frequency nouns. Section 4 considers Eyak, where, as is known, the l-qualifier is sometimes cognate with the Athabaskan nasal-class prefix (Krauss, in prep.). The compari- son with Yeniseian suggests that some instances of the Eyak d- and l-qualifiers may derive from fossil- ized possessive affixes, though most other qualifiers derive from anatomical nouns. Section 5 compares postpositional constructions in both families, which also show evidence of once having contained pos- sessive connectors. Section 6 considers directionals, defined by Leer (1989: 576) as “words that specify direction with regard to a frame of reference, such as a body of water”. Directionals in the two families have striking semantic and morphological parallels, including vestiges of possessive connectors. Sec- tion 7 examines evidence showing that Yeniseian and Na-Dene demonstrative prefixes were originally connected to the following stem by a possessive affix. Finally, section 8 considers non-canonical onset correspondences between Tlingit and Athabaskan-Eyak body-part nouns that may have arisen when the noun in Pre-Tlingit absorbed a prefix cognate to the nasal/lateral elements attested in Athabaskan- Eyak and Yeniseian possessive constructions. Section 9 summarizes these findings and considers a few unanswered questions brought to light by the discussion. 2 Nasal-class nouns in Athabaskan Possessive prefixes before certain inalienably possessed nouns in Dene (Athabaskan) languages involve a nasal element not present in conjunction with other nouns. Rice (1989: 211) provides the following 1. I am grateful to the volume’s co-editors, Sharon Hargus and Danny Hieber, for their helpful comments and questions, and for the opportunity to include the present article, which was not actually presented at the 2013 Athabaskan/Dene Conference. The conference was successful in great part thanks to Sharon’s professional expertize and interpersonal skills, which achieved a unique blend of historical and contemporary topics, along with a seamless integration of language revitalization with theoretical linguistics. 80 Working Papers in Athabaskan (Dene) Languages 2012 — Vajda forms, where the inalienably possessed noun –lá ‘hand’ requires nasal-class forms of possessive pre- fixes: (1) Slave noun with nasal-class prefix sįlá ‘my hand’ nįlá ‘your (sg.) hand’ bįlá ~ mįlá ‘his/her hand’ As is customary in Athabaskan linguistics, the hook below į in the forms listed in (1) indicates nasaliza- tion of the vowel. Non-nasalized allomorphs of Slave possessive prefixes – se- ‘my’, ne- ‘your (sg.)’, be- ~ me- ‘his/her’ – appear before other possessed nouns, often with an accompanying possessive suffix in the form of -é for alienable possession, or - ́ (high tone) for inalienably possessed nouns (Rice 1989: 215). Slave nouns that take the nasal-class prefix, like –lá ‘hand’, lack the possessive suffix. The examples of Slave alienably possessed nouns in (2) are cited from Rice (1989: 207), with the unpossessed noun pro- vided in parentheses: (2) Slave possessive constructions with non-nasal-class prefixes se-mbeh-é ‘my knife’ (mbeh ‘knife’) ne-tl’ul-é ‘your (sg.) rope’ (tl’uh ‘rope’) me-lį-é ‘his/her dog’ (lį ‘dog’) Body part nouns incorporated thematically into finite verb forms are not preceded by the nasal element, as in Slave k’etthíechu ‘s/he turns his/her head’ (Rice 1989: 647), where -tthí- ‘head’ is not pre- ceded by a possessive prefix and therefore lacks the nasal element as well. Homologous idiosyncrasies can be found elsewhere in Athabaskan in connection with posses- sive morphology and inalienably possessed nouns. Witsuwit’en, though lacking nasal vowels, contains several inalienably possessed nouns with an unexplained nasal-initial segment: –ntaq ‘forehead’, –nɣen ‘head’, –ntsəs ‘nose’, –ntl’at ‘temple’, –ntsən ‘arm, foreleg, sleeve’, –ntsətl ‘back of head’2. In Navajo, a high tone appears in possessive prefixes before some of the same inalienably possessed nouns that require nasal-class prefixes in Slave. The homologous nature of these elements can be illustrated by compar- ing the Navajo high-toned prefix in ší-la’ ‘my hand’ with the Slave nasal-class prefix in sįlá ‘my hand’, as contrasted with the regular prefixed Navajo ši-bééž ‘my knife’ and Slave se-mbeh-é ‘my knife’. Hoijer (1969: 157) reconstructed *ni- as the historical form of the Navajo high-tone element in pos- sessive prefixes based on internal reconstruction and comparison with cognate constructions meaning ‘(someone’s) hand/finger’ in other Athabaskan languages, including Gwich’in –ni-li’, Beaver –n-la’, and Tɬįchǫ (Dogrib)–n-la . Leer (1996, 2012: 1) reconstructs the Proto-Athabaskan nasal-class prefix as *n- rather than Hoijer’s *ni-. The survival of this element before cognate vocabulary in different geographic areas of the Atha- baskan world suggests an ancient, inherited pattern. The presence in Eyak of a cognate prefix with al- lomorphs -:n- ~ -la- also supports the archaic provenance of this feature of possessive constructions. The following examples, taken from Krauss’s discussion of Eyak nouns and qualifiers (Krauss, in prep.), show that the nasal allomorph predictably appears before coronals, while la- appears elsewhere: -ːn-daː’ ‘face’, 2. I thank Sharon Hargus for pointing out these forms. For more on Witsuwit’en possessive morphology, see Hargus (2007: 229–232, 618-620). Working Papers in Athabaskan (Dene) Languages 2012 — Vajda 81 -ːn-dalah ‘antler, horn’, -ːn-ch’it’ ‘forehead’, -lɑ-ɢaːnš ‘part of face below nose’, -la-qah ‘head’, -lɑ-quhɬ ‘cheek’, -la-χu’ ‘facial hair’, -la-wahsq’ ‘temple. In these particular examples, the alternating qualifier forms -ːn- ~ -la- apparently reflect the Proto-Na-Dene nominal root *-ñan’, meaning ‘face’ (Leer 2012: 1). In other cases, such as tsaː-la-q’aχ ‘jellyfish’ (< tsaː ‘rock’ + q’aχ ‘fat’) and tsaː-la-χaɬ ‘gravel on beach’ (< tsaː ‘rock’ + χaɬ ‘granular substance?’), the Eyak l-qualifier cannot be etymologized as deriving from an anatomical noun. The next section introduces Yeniseian comparanda to argue that the Athabaskan nasal-class prefix and some (but not all) instances of the Eyak l-qualifier are vestiges of an ancient ge- neric possessive affix. 3 Yeniseian possessive morphology Yeniseian is a family of several languages once spoken across much of central and southern Siberia, but now represented solely by Ket, which has fewer than fifty elderly speakers. The family once contained at least two primary branches – Ket and Kott – and has been hypothesized to be genealogically related to Na-Dene on the basis of shared core vocabulary and morphology (Vajda 2010). Like Na-Dene languag- es, Yeniseian uses preposed pronominal markers to express possession. However, there appears to be no trace of any possessive suffix following the possessed noun. Nor is there a distinction between inalien- able and alienable possession. Body part nouns and kinship terms in the three Modern Ket dialects (Northern, Southern, and Central Ket) may be uttered either with or without a possessor indicated. Examples of Ket nouns in possessive constructions appear in (3): (3) Northern Ket possessed nouns3 b-ki’s ‘my leg’ k-tɨ’ ‘your (sg.) head’ d-go’d ‘her/its rump’ da-qāˑre ‘his fur’4 na-qo’n ‘our/your/their conifer needles’ The possessive markers in Modern Ket are actually special clitics. In fast speech, they normally attach to any available preceding word. When pronounced sentence initially or preceded by a pause they pro- cliticize to the following possessum noun. The example in (4) is adapted from the discussion of South- ern Ket possessive constructions in Vajda (2008: 188-190): (4) sul-d ètl blood-3INAN.POSS color ‘the color of blood’ The variable phonological behavior of Ket possessive morphemes has been attributed to a typological shift in favor of root-initial phonological words, which developed under the influence of the surround- ing suffixing languages (Vajda 2009: 486-488). The so-called “genitive case” of Ket nouns and pronouns is, in fact, simply the possessive morpheme encliticized to the preceding possessor noun in fast speech. 3. Ket phonemic prosody is transcribed as: v̄ ˑ for high-even tone on a half-long vowel; v’ for abrupt rising tone ending in creaky voice or full glottal closure; vː (or vv) for rising-falling tone on a geminate vowel, and v̀ for falling tone. The symbol /ə/ repre- sents a back rather than central unrounded vowel, which is allophonically realized as mid-high [ɤ] under high-even tone and as mid-low [ʌ] elsewhere. The symbol
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Recognition of Nasalized and Non- Nasalized Vowels
    RECOGNITION OF NASALIZED AND NON- NASALIZED VOWELS Submitted By: BILAL A. RAJA Advised by: Dr. Carol Espy Wilson and Tarun Pruthi Speech Communication Lab, Dept of Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Maryland, College Park Maryland Engineering Research Internship Teams (MERIT) Program 2006 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1- Abstract 3 2- What Is Nasalization? 3 2.1 – Production of Nasal Sound 3 2.2 – Common Spectral Characteristics of Nasalization 4 3 – Expected Results 6 3.1 – Related Previous Researches 6 3.2 – Hypothesis 7 4- Method 7 4.1 – The Task 7 4.2 – The Technique Used 8 4.3 – HMM Tool Kit (HTK) 8 4.3.1 – Data Preparation 9 4.3.2 – Training 9 4.3.3 – Testing 9 4.3.4 – Analysis 9 5 – Results 10 5.1 – Experiment 1 11 5.2 – Experiment 2 11 6 – Conclusion 12 7- References 13 2 1 - ABSTRACT When vowels are adjacent to nasal consonants (/m,n,ng/), they often become nasalized for at least some part of their duration. This nasalization is known to lead to changes in perceived vowel quality. The goal of this project is to verify if it is beneficial to first recognize nasalization in vowels and treat the three groups of vowels (those occurring before nasal consonants, those occurring after nasal consonants, and the oral vowels which are vowels that are not adjacent to nasal consonants) separately rather than collectively for recognizing the vowel identities. The standard Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) and the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) paradigm have been used for this purpose. The results show that when the system is trained on vowels in general, the recognition of nasalized vowels is 17% below that of oral vowels.
    [Show full text]
  • NWAV 46 Booklet-Oct29
    1 PROGRAM BOOKLET October 29, 2017 CONTENTS • The venue and the town • The program • Welcome to NWAV 46 • The team and the reviewers • Sponsors and Book Exhibitors • Student Travel Awards https://english.wisc.edu/nwav46/ • Abstracts o Plenaries Workshops o nwav46 o Panels o Posters and oral presentations • Best student paper and poster @nwav46 • NWAV sexual harassment policy • Participant email addresses Look, folks, this is an electronic booklet. This Table of Contents gives you clues for what to search for and we trust that’s all you need. 2 We’ll have buttons with sets of pronouns … and some with a blank space to write in your own set. 3 The venue and the town We’re assuming you’ll navigate using electronic devices, but here’s some basic info. Here’s a good campus map: http://map.wisc.edu/. The conference will be in Union South, in red below, except for Saturday talks, which will be in the Brogden Psychology Building, just across Johnson Street to the northeast on the map. There are a few places to grab a bite or a drink near Union South and the big concentration of places is on and near State Street, a pedestrian zone that runs east from Memorial Library (top right). 4 The program 5 NWAV 46 2017 Madison, WI Thursday, November 2nd, 2017 12:00 Registration – 5th Quarter Room, Union South pm-6:00 pm Industry Landmark Northwoods Agriculture 1:00- Progress in regression: Discourse analysis for Sociolinguistics and Texts as data 3:00 Statistical and practical variationists forensic speech sources for improvements to Rbrul science: Knowledge-
    [Show full text]
  • Kent Academic Repository Full Text Document (Pdf)
    Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Rehman, Ishrat (2019) Urdu Vowel System and Perception of English Vowels by Punjabi-Urdu Speakers. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/80850/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Urdu Vowel System and Perception of English Vowels by Punjabi-Urdu Speakers Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to Department of English Language and Linguistics (ELL) School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) University of Kent, Canterbury by Ishrat Rehman 2019 Abstract A well-defined vocalic and consonantal system is a prerequisite when investigating the perception and production of a second language. The lack of a well-defined Urdu vowel system in the multilingual context of Pakistan motivated investigation of the acoustic and phonetic properties of Urdu vowels.
    [Show full text]
  • First Capitals of Armenia and Georgia: Armawir and Armazi (Problems of Early Ethnic Associations)
    First Capitals of Armenia and Georgia: Armawir and Armazi (Problems of Early Ethnic Associations) Armen Petrosyan Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan The foundation legends of the first capitals of Armenia and Georgia – Armawir and Armazi – have several common features. A specific cult of the moon god is attested in both cities in the triadic temples along with the supreme thunder god and the sun god. The names of Armawir and Armazi may be associated with the Anatolian Arma- ‘moon (god).’ The Armenian ethnonym (exonym) Armen may also be derived from the same stem. The sacred character of cultic localities is extremely enduring. The cults were changed, but the localities kept their sacred character for millennia. At the transition to a new religious system the new cults were often simply imposed on the old ones (e.g., the old temple was renamed after a new deity, or the new temple was built on the site or near the ruins of the old one). The new deities inherited the characteristics of the old ones, or, one may say, the old cults were simply renamed, which could have been accompanied by some changes of the cult practices. Evidently, in the new system more or less comparable images were chosen to replace the old ones: similarity of functions, rituals, names, concurrence of days of cult, etc (Petrosyan 2006: 4 f.; Petrosyan 2007a: 175).1 On the other hand, in the course of religious changes, old gods often descend to the lower level of epic heroes. Thus, the heroes of the Armenian ethnogonic legends and the epic “Daredevils of Sasun” are derived from ancient local gods: e.g., Sanasar, who obtains the 1For numerous examples of preservation of pre-Urartian and Urartian holy places in medieval Armenia, see, e.g., Hmayakyan and Sanamyan 2001).
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of Oral Articulation of Vowel Nasality in the Light of the Independent Effects of Nasalization on Vowel Quality
    DOI: 10.17469/O2104AISV000002 CHRISTOPHER CARIGNAN An examination of oral articulation of vowel nasality in the light of the independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality In this paper, a summary is given of an experimental technique to address a known issue in research on the independent effects of nasalization on vowel acoustics: given that the separate transfer functions associated with the oral and nasal cavities are merged in the acoustic signal, the task of teasing apart the respective effects of the two cavities seems to be an intractable problem. The results obtained from the method reveal that the independent effects of nasal- ization on the acoustic vowel space are: F1-raising for high vowels, F1-lowering for non-high vowels, and F2-lowering for non-front vowels. The results from previous articulatory research performed by the author on the production of vowel nasality in French, Hindi, and English are discussed in the light of these independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality. Keywords: vowel nasality, vowel quality, articulation, acoustics, sound change. 1. Introduction A traditional characterization of vowel nasality adopts a seemingly binary classification of vowel sounds based on the relative height of the velum: nasal vowels are produced with a low velum position (and, thus, air radiation from both the oral and nasal cavities), where- as oral vowels are produced with a high velum position (and, thus, air radiation from the oral cavity alone). While it is unquestionably true that nasal vowels are produced with a lowered velum, this traditional characterization carries an implicit assumption about the state of the oral cavity for the production of a nasal vowel, i.e., that the nasal vowel maintains the same articulatory characteristics as its non-nasal counterpart in all aspects except for the height of the velum.
    [Show full text]
  • Mantua Humanistic Studies. Volume VI
    ISSN 2612-0437 Mantua Humanistic Studies Volume VI Mantua Humanistic Studies Volume VI Edited by Edoardo Scarpanti UNIVERSITAS STUDIORUM © 2019, Universitas Studiorum S.r.l. - Casa Editrice via Sottoriva, 9 - 46100 Mantova (MN) P. IVA 02346110204 www.universitas-studiorum.it Copertina: Ilari Anderlini, Art Director www.graphiceye.it Mappa del Ducato di Mantova, da Georg Braun & Franz Hogenber, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1575 Impaginazione e redazione: Luigi Diego Di Donna I contributi pubblicati nella presente miscellanea sono stati sottoposti a peer review Prima edizione nella collana “Mantua Humanistic Studies” luglio 2019 Finito di stampare nel luglio 2019 ISBN 978-88-3369-046-9 ISSN 2612-0437 Summary La rara iconografia di un auriga su una lampada ad olio in lega di rame dal Khurasan (Iran), XII secolo 5 Maria Vittoria Fontana Di fame e d’amore. I romanzi di Maurizio de Giovanni tra immagini del mondo e tragicità dell’esistere 27 Linda De Feo Un progetto di musealizzazione nel ragusano: l’abitato di Chiafura a Scicli 53 Federica Maria Chiara Santagati La recente evoluzione dell’ecosistema urbano a Mantova 73 Aurelio Bruzzo, Isabella Rossi Il Museo Ritter di Waldenbuch, Baden–Württemberg 93 Federica Maria Chiara Santagati Convergenze tra Leon Battista Alberti e Jan Van Eyck 115 Stefano Marconi Globalizzazione e rinnovamento urbano. Il caso di greentrification a Berlino 135 Giovanni Pasta L’Italia Paese di arrivo: alle origini dei nuovi movimenti di popolazione 181 Giovanni Pasta Alle origini dei nuovi processi di integrazione e di segregazione
    [Show full text]
  • A Guide to Source Material on Extinct North American Indian Languages Author(S): Kenneth Croft Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol
    A Guide to Source Material on Extinct North American Indian Languages Author(s): Kenneth Croft Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1948), pp. 260-268 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1262881 . Accessed: 22/03/2011 08:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of American Linguistics. http://www.jstor.org A GUIDE TO SOURCE MATERIAL ON EXTINCT NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES KENNETHCROFT INDIANAUNIVERSITY 0.
    [Show full text]
  • The Taittirtyaprtiakhya As on Antjsvara
    THE TAITTIRTYAPRTIAKHYA AS 密 ON ANTJSVARA 教 文 Nobuhiko Kobayasi 化 A The dot at the left upper corner of an Indian letter1) represents a nasal element called anusvara (that which follows a vowel).2) The descriptions of anusvara as found in the works of ancient Indian phoneticians3) are so inconsistent and confusing that modern Sanskrit scholars are still confused. Some represented by the author of the Atharvavedapratiaakhya hold that it is a pure nasalized vowel,4) and others represented by the author of the RkpratiS'akhya say that it is either a vowel and a consonant.5) There is also another school, according to which it is a pure consonant.6) B An Indo-aryan syllable (aksara)7) is heavy (guru) or light (laghu). It is heavy, when the vowel is long8) or followed by a conjunction of con- sonants,9) and it is light when the vowel is short or not followed by a con- junction of consonants.10) An important feature of the phonetic element called anusvara is that it affects meter. According to the Taittiriyapratisakhya (TP), a letter with the anusvara sign represents a metrically long syllable." On the basis of this, description of the TP, Whitney adopts the view that anusvara is a lengthened nasal vowel.12) He seeks support for his interpretation from the fact that the anusvara sign is written over the vowel -112- of the first syllable.131 So the phonetic value of vamsa is interpreted as [Qa:sa]. This interpretation seems to be supported by such Hindi develop- THE TAITTIRIYAPRATISAKHYA ON ANUSVARA ment of anusvara as in vamsa>bas.
    [Show full text]
  • Correlation of the Burushaski Pronominal System with Indo-European and Phonological and Grammatical Evidence for a Genetic Relationship
    Correlation of the Burushaski Pronominal System with Indo-European and Phonological and Grammatical Evidence for a Genetic Relationship Ilija Çasule Macquarie University The Burushaski personal and demonstrative pronominal system is correlated in its entirety with Indo-European. This close correlation, together with the extensive grammatical correspondences in the nominal and verbal systems (given as an addendum), advances significantly the hypothesis of the genetic affiliation of Burushaski with Indo-European. The article includes a comprehensive discussion of the Burushaski-Indo-European phonological and lexical correspondences. It proposes that Burushaski is an Indo- European language which at some stage of its development was in contact with an agglutinative system. 1. Introduction 1.1. Brief overview of sources and previous studies Being a language with undetermined genetic affiliation, Burushaski has attracted considerable interest, especially in the last twenty years, but also earlier. There have been many attempts to relate it to languages as diverse as Basque, Nubian, Dravidian, various Caucasic as well as Yeniseian languages, Sino-Tibetan and Sumerian (for a brief overview, see Bashir 2000:1-3). These endeavors have failed mostly because of unsystematic or inconsistent correspondences, incorrect internal reconstruction, excessive semantic latitude and incoherent semantic fields, root etymologizing and especially lack of grammatical and derivational evidence. Burushaski is spoken by around 90,000 people (Berger 1990:567) in the Karakoram area in North-West Pakistan at the junction of three linguistic families — the Indo- European (Indo-Aryan and Iranian), the Sino-Tibetan and the Turkic. Its dialectal differentiation is minor. There are Volume 40, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2012 60 Ilija Çasule three very closely related dialects: Hunza and Nager with minimal differences, and the Yasin dialect, which exhibits differential traits, but is still mutually intelligible with the former two.
    [Show full text]
  • Perception of Brazilian Portuguese Nasal Vowels by Danish Listeners
    121 Perception of Brazilian Portuguese Nasal Vowels by Danish Listeners Denise Cristina Kluge Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Abstract The word-fi nal nasals /m/ and /n/ have different patterns of phonetic realizations across languages, whereas they are distinctively pronounced in English and Danish, in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) they are not fully realized and the preceding vowel is nasalized. Bearing in mind this difference, the main objective of this study was to investigate the perception of BP nasal vowels by Danish learners of BP. Two discrimination and two identifi cation tests were used and taken by two groups composed of ten Danish learners of English, as a reference for comparison, and ten Danish learners of BP. General results showed both groups had similar diffi culties in both discrimination tests. It was less diffi cult for the Danish learners of BP to identify the BP native-like pronunciation when presented in contrast to a non-native-like pronunciation. 1. Introduction Many studies concerning the perception of second language (L2) sounds have discussed the infl uence of the native language (L1) on accurate perception of the L2 (Flege, 1993, 1995; Wode, 1995; Best, 1995; Kuhl & Iverson, 1995). Moreover, some L2 speech models have discussed the role of accurate perception on accurate production (Flege, 1995; Best, 1995; Escudero, 2005; Best & Tyler, 2007). According to some studies (Schmidt, 1996; Harnsberger, 2001; Best, McRoberts & Goodell, 2001; Best & Tyler, 2007), it is usually believed that, at least in initial stages of L2 learning, adults are language-specifi c perceivers and that they perceive L2 segments through the fi lter of their L1 sound system.
    [Show full text]
  • 24.961F14 Introduction to Phonology
    24.961 Harmony-1 [1]. General typology: all the vowels in a domain (e.g. phonological word) agree for some feature; action at a distance: a change in the first vowel of word in Turkish can systematically alter the final vowel, which could be many syllables away: ılımlı-laş-tır-dık-lar-ımız-dan#mı-sın vs. sinirli-leş-tir-dik-ler-imiz-den#mi-sin? [back] Turkish, Finnish [round] Turkish, Yawelmani [ATR] Kinande, Yoruba, Wolof, Assamese, … [low] Telugu [nasal] Barasana [RTR] Arabic dialects coronal dependents: [anterior], [distributed] Chumash, Kinyarwanda [2] harmony is nonlocal and iterative Yawelmani (i,u,a,o) non-future gerundive dubitative let’s V xat-hin xat-mi xat-al xat-xa ‘eat’ bok-hin bok-mi bok-ol xat-xo ‘find’ xil-hin xil-mi xil-al xil-xa ‘tangle’ dub-hun dub-mu dub-al dub-xa ‘lead by the hand’ ko?-hin ko?-mi ko?-ol ko?-xo ‘throw’ • Suffixal vowels agree in rounding with root • But they must have the same value for [high] (a common restriction) • Local relation between successive syllables rather than all assimilating to first syllable max-sit-hin ‘procures for’ bok-ko ‘find’ imperative ko? -sit-hin ‘throws for’ bok-sit-ka ‘find for’ imperative tul-sut-hun ‘burns for’ • Stem control: in some systems contrast expressed in root to which affixes (prefixes and suffixes) assimilate (Akan [ATR]) bisa ‘ask’ o-bisa-ɪ ‘he asked it’ kari ‘weigh’ ɔ-kari-i ‘he weighed it’ • In other languages affixes may contain a triggering vowel: Kinande [ATR] (Kenstowicz 2009 and references) 1 i u [+ATR] ɪ ʊ [−ATR] ɛ ɔ [−ATR] a [−ATR] • [+ATR] variants
    [Show full text]
  • Native American Languages, Indigenous Languages of the Native Peoples of North, Middle, and South America
    Native American Languages, indigenous languages of the native peoples of North, Middle, and South America. The precise number of languages originally spoken cannot be known, since many disappeared before they were documented. In North America, around 300 distinct, mutually unintelligible languages were spoken when Europeans arrived. Of those, 187 survive today, but few will continue far into the 21st century, since children are no longer learning the vast majority of these. In Middle America (Mexico and Central America) about 300 languages have been identified, of which about 140 are still spoken. South American languages have been the least studied. Around 1500 languages are known to have been spoken, but only about 350 are still in use. These, too are disappearing rapidly. Classification A major task facing scholars of Native American languages is their classification into language families. (A language family consists of all languages that have evolved from a single ancestral language, as English, German, French, Russian, Greek, Armenian, Hindi, and others have all evolved from Proto-Indo-European.) Because of the vast number of languages spoken in the Americas, and the gaps in our information about many of them, the task of classifying these languages is a challenging one. In 1891, Major John Wesley Powell proposed that the languages of North America constituted 58 independent families, mainly on the basis of superficial vocabulary resemblances. At the same time Daniel Brinton posited 80 families for South America. These two schemes form the basis of subsequent classifications. In 1929 Edward Sapir tentatively proposed grouping these families into superstocks, 6 in North America and 15 in Middle America.
    [Show full text]